PLEASE TAKE THE TIME TO READ THIS! MUCH IS COUNTING ON YOUR RESPONSE!

The Fortnight For Freedom is still trucking along.  Check out the USCCB’s web site for more information. 

http://www.usccb.org/issues-and-action/religious-liberty/fortnight-for-freedom/index.cfm  

This is a very important time for us all in our country with regards to the attacks on religious freedom.  Quite a lot has been written and spoken about on Catholic radio and television concerning the seriousness of these days and the need for all of us to step up our prayer and action to defend our religious freedoms.  

In a previous post we drew attention to a speech by Archbishop Charles Chaput,  to a group of Catholic journalists on June 20th, the evening before Fortnight For Freedom began.  The entire speech can be found here   http://www.firstthings.com/onthesquare/2012/06/launching-the-fortnight-for-freedom  Here are a couple more key points that the Archbishop made in that speech that are of notable importance.

“Here’s my fourth point: Unless we work hard to keep our religious liberty, we’ll lose it. It’s already happening in other developed countries like Britain and Canada. The U.S. Constitution is a great document–historically unique for its fusion of high ideals with the realism of very practical checks and balances. But in the end, it’s just an elegant piece of paper. In practice, nothing guarantees our freedoms except our willingness to fight for them. That means fighting politically and through the courts, without tiring and without apologies.

Here’s my fifth and final point: Politics and the courts are important. But our religious freedom ultimately depends on the vividness of our own Christian faith–in other words, how deeply we believe it, and how honestly we live it. Religious liberty is an empty shell if the spiritual core of a people is weak. Or to put it more bluntly, if people don’t believe in God, religious liberty isn’t a value. That’s the heart of the matter.

The worst enemies of religious freedom aren’t “out there” among the legion of critics who hate Christ or the Gospel or the Church, or all three. The worst enemies are in here, with us–all of us, clergy, religious, and lay–when we live our faith with tepidness, routine, and hypocrisy.”

How each of us responds to these challenges will affect many lives, now and for generations to come.